Why Student Apathy, Not Concussions, Could Doom High School Football

Paul Butler, for an instant, became the most famous school board member in America. He got that status by surmising during a recent board meeting that perhaps Dover, N.H., High should drop football because of the high concussion risk. The retired physician, who said he came to the conclusion after reading numerous studies, apparently sprung this idea out of nowhere, because as his call went bouncing around the Internet, the school board issued a statement assuring the world the Dover Green Wave football team would be around for a while:

A story about dropping football from Dover High School has caused quite a stir in our community and it seems the entire seacoast. We need to be clear that the comments from Dr. Butler were his reaction to various studies he has read (and is) not the opinion of the Dover School Board. Termination of the DHS football program has not come before the board and is not on any agenda at this time. Dr. Butler's opinion was brought as a matter of interest only during our Oct. 1st meeting.

However, Dover football is not out of the woods yet when it comes to its possible demise. If it dies, it won't be because the school board killed it. It'll be because, as is happening at Dover and many other high schools nationwide right now, there aren't enough kids interested enough in playing to field a team.

"You'd have to go back 45 years, I think, before I was here, to even come close to numbers like this," Osbon said. "It's like nothing I've ever seen. It was a pattern that began two years ago. We've been recruiting the hallways the best we can, and I think we're in a lull right now."

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"We can't get guys hurt," Osbon said. "We know we don't have the depth, so there are periods in practice that have been cut out because of that. But at the same time, we have to make sure these kids experience what Dover football is all about."

That means, according to Osbon, he will be coaching this year's edition of the Green Wave the same as he has his previous 20. But it also means a number of players will be going both ways and that some relatively inexperienced players will be thrown into situations they might not be 100 percent ready for.

"Injuries will absolutely devastate us," Osbon said. "What we're hoping is, we can stay healthy and the kids who have been with us for a few years can carry us a little bit and we can be competitive."

So far, Osbon's Green Wave is 1-4 and is still fielding a full team. So far it hasn't, unlike Kearny High School in New Jersey, canceled a game in advance for fear its small and outmanned squad would suffer injuries against a team of greater quantity and quality.

Perhaps concussions will send some numbers down later, as the young kids who aren't playing football now don't play it in high school. But the more immediate issue is the general sense among some high schoolers that they have better things to do. Either they don't want to play because they'd rather not bust their butts in practice daily, only to stay clamped to the bench every game, or because they are on a squad of low quantity and quality, and they'd rather not get maimed every Friday night by their opponents, then mocked every Monday morning by their classmates.

If you're an athlete at one of these schools, what's your motivation to play? Here's a typical game: You play the whole time -- which sounds good -- but you get beat up and worn out against the opponent's first-teamers, many of whom are playing only one way. And then, once the game gets out of hand and all you can think about is going home, you get to play the second half against a bunch of gung-ho second- and third-teamers who view knocking your tired body around as the highlight of their season.

And when you go back to school Monday, it's a tough sell to convince your non-football-playing buddies to take up the sport. Teenage boys don't like to be associated with anything uncool, and there might be nothing less cool than getting embarrassed and smacked around week after week on the football field.

Remember, there are two main factors at work when it comes to fielding a representative high school football team: a kid's willingness to put himself through the rigors of the sport and his parents' willingness to let him. Given the growing awareness of the sport's darker side, most prominently the long-term damage associated with concussions, some erosion in participation is to be expected.

And here's the problem for the future of football: Erosion can metastasize. One year of poor participation at a high school can roll into the next year, then the next. Pretty soon, one school cuts its program, and another, and then leagues have to consolidate and football becomes less of a cultural touchstone. This Armageddon scenario is exaggerated but not out of the question. According to the California Interscholastic Federation, participation in football has declined from 107,916 in 2007 to 103,088 this season, a drop of more than 4 percent.

My son's sophomore team is undefeated, so in Keown's scenario, he is one of gung-ho second-stringers helping his opponent rethinking his football future. But my son's team also has had players quit when it became apparent early on they were going to spend a lot of time buried on the bench. While you might think they're losing a lesson in finishing what you start, they're actually learning another valuable lesson: there are points in life where you cut your losses and move on. After all, these were kids already involved with other activities. Plus, over the years football, as a means of ascending the high school social circle, has gradually been downgraded from required to possibly helpful.

And in the end, that's why the likes of Coach Osbon should worry about student disinterest, rather than a concussion-frightened board member, as the root of the demise of a high school football program.